~BOOK 5/PART ONE~ Paranormal: Too Close To Home (Multi-Bandom FanFic)

My car passed by the sign that read "Welcome to New Orleans", but the place I was driving into looked nothing like New Orleans. It was far from it. A hazy smoke hung over the city and, as I drove down the street, I noticed there wasn't any music being played anymore. The usual happy people who lined the streets now had vanished and were replaced with men and women throwing punches, or shooting one another. It wasn't just men and women from one faction either, it was a mix of all of them.

I let a low growl of disappointment slip past my lips and Lynn looked over at me. I made a hard turn to the left, headed for the only place in town safe enough for the human next to me.

"Look, I'm taking you to the pack house," I told her, "Ask around for Jack - he'll keep you safe for now."

"No, I don't want to leave you," She responded, reaching over the center console and grabbing my hand, "Not again."

"Lynn, I need to know you're safe. The pack territory is safe. I'll come and find you when this is all over." I said this without knowing that the pack territory had been infiltrated, internally destroyed, and broken down to the point where no one was safe, no matter who you were or where you went for refuge.

I turned off my car and opened my door. Lynn did the same, and the two of us carefully closed the doors before walking around. I sniffed the air and the only scent filling my nostrils was the stench of decaying matter. "This way," I stated, heading for the back entrance of the large building. There were a few heartbeats coming from inside the home. Quietly, I opened the door to reveal Bruno was pacing back and forth, talking angrily on the phone with someone. My eyes grew wide.

"...No, I already fucking told you, just because he won doesn't mean-" He spun around in his pace and his eyes fell upon Lynn and me, his speech being cut short and his phone slipping from his hands. "K-Kenya," He stammered.

"What the hell happened? Where is everyone?" I didn't have time for him to be surprised.

He gulped and answered uneasily, "They're...They're dead, or missing. I-I can't keep tabs on them. There's too many."

"What about Jack?" I questioned, "Where is he?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since our fight."

"Fight?"

"Look, Kenya, that's the least of your concerns right now," He said in an attempt to calm me down, walking up to me and pulling me into an embrace that didn't last very long before he pulled away from me, keeping his hands on my upper arms. "I'm just glad to have you back. We need you. This...This has gotten out of control!"

"No shit." I shrugged his hands off of me and turned back to the human staring out the door. "This is Lynn. She's a hunter, but she's here to help. For the time being, she's going to stay here. Meanwhile, you and I are going out to find Patrick, Lily, and Harrison."

"But Lily's dead, Kenya." My eyes widened in horror. "Yeah, she was the first to die..."

"The other two?"

"Patrick's who knows where, and Harrison...Harrison ditched town." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"Patrick wouldn't ditch, but he would hide. Harrison, he only goes to a few places; it'll be easy to find him. What about Rachael?"

"She's with that asshole, Brendon. I don't know where, though. I just know that her sister came for a visit and things went south."

"Fine, let's go," I commanded, turning to Lynn as she crossed her arms, "I'll be back. There's a gun in my office and there are five boxes of ammo to match it. Anyone who looks like they aren't here to talk gets a bullet. Got it?"

Lynn smirked. "My pleasure." She brushed past me to find the office, leaving me alone with Bruno.

"You know the point of the treaty was so we wouldn't have a war," I muttered, glaring at him before turning on my heel and making my way toward the front door, waving for him to follow.

"You can thank your moron of a brother for that," He spat, trailing behind me as we walked out of the house together.

"Excuse me?" I stopped and turned around on my mate. "Jack is a lot of things, but he's not a moron. I thought you and Jack would work out whatever beef you had with each other by now. All Jack wants is a chance to fit in, but you're too much of a jackass to realize it."

"Well I would've, but then he challenged me so I'd sign that paper. Did he even realize what I had to deal with being alpha? No, he didn't! He didn't know what the fuck he was doing. He's ignorant to the pack's needs and only cares about himself."

"He wouldn't challenge you if it wasn't for a good reason. Jack did this so he could scare you straight." I crossed my arms, partly agreeing with my twin's actions. "You've been a mess, Bruno. You're angry all the time, and lately, you've let your pride get in the way of your judgement."

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Kenya, we don't have time to argue about this, okay? We need to find Patrick and Harrison." I nodded my head in agreement and the two of us continued our small trip to my car. We reached the car in silence, and before either of us could get into the vehicle, he inquired, "Why are we finding them, again?"

I rolled my eyes. "Because if we don't figure all of this out now, when?"

"When this war's over," He answered my rhetorical question coldly, walking around to the other side of my car and slipping into the passenger's seat.

I had to hold myself back from exploding on Bruno, even though he deserved it. I could understand why Jack would challenge him. If I'd stayed, it wouldn't have taken much for me to challenge him. "Where did you last see Patrick?" I asked him with a clenched jaw while getting in and starting my car up.

"He and his friends were last seen trashing Harrison's mansion," He replied, "Before that was Lily's coven, and before that, the pack house." Bruno folded his arms over his chest and sighed, still furious with the vampires for the destruction they caused and the inability he had in trying to stop them since his power had been stripped away from him.

"Then I guess Harrison's mansion it is," I announced,  pressing down on the gas pedal and speeding off down the road.